Posts tagged “ipocalypse”

When I was cutting my teeth in the IT world I meet a guy at work named Ken. he was an IT idea guy and the company kept him locked away in a room like a mad scientist. In my time at the company I used to find excuses to go pick his brain. I was the closest thing you can get to legal LSD.

He never wore shoes, he sometimes appeared as if he never even went home. I never saw him build anything but he was the guy the brass would call on when they needed someone to poke holes into a gant chart or some IT sales pitch about redundant servers. I asked him once “if anyone has ever impressed him” his reply was “not yet”.

Maybe he was chock full of ignorance and negativity I was not smart enough to understand 1/4 of the things he said. One thing that stood out is that he claimed to be one of the ex-government employees who invented the internet. He said it was designed for the government and cannot sustain its growth patterns. He compared it to the leaning tower of Pizza with the world trying to find space on the top floor.

It has taken almost 20 years to really understand what he was saying. Broadband wasn’t a consumer product back then it was for business and government. Now when we check into a hotel and if it doesn’t have high-speed internet my kids act like we stuck in some road side motel with a crappy dinner. If they only knew of dial-up and all of the tricks to getting on the net in the AOL days.

So this morning when I was reading this article on Mashable about the internet is running out of IP addresses I thought of my mad IT guru Ken. For every box plugged into the net there is a unique IP address given. Some can be reissued but even with that the fact is in a few days we will run out of IP address. At least IPv4 IP’s are going away. The ones short enough for your IT manager to remember the IP address and recite it to the boss about your continuous views of adult dating sites. The people who are smarter than us about these things have already been preparing for this. No need to not buy the new laptop or tablet. No you cyber stalkers won’t have freedom to run a muck after we run out of IPv4’s

The one thing that Ken forgot is that he is not the only intelligent guy stuffed in a “idea’ room. People have been working on IPv6 for a few years and the new IP address will be much longer and a blend of number and letters (WEP anyone). So keep surfing, keep laughing at your friends who do not have high-speed Internet and stay connected.

Remember you are OG if your IP is 48.6.71.181 and you are a newbie if your IP includes letters and digits. It is not to late they have just about 4 billion unique IP’s and they are getting taken at a rate of 1 million address’ every four hours.

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Jason Genet

Jason Genet is the CEO of Ingrained Media. He and his team help build brands, manage athletes and sell sponsorships.
Jason is a former member of the US Army and is a disabled veteran. Jason Genet is married and has two daughters.